


yarrow, dogwood, grace: a story in chartreuse

by untilourapathy (gwendolen_lotte)



Series: colour studies [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Activism, F/F, Falling In Love, Femslash, Gardens & Gardening, HP: EWE, Journalism, London, Love Confessions, Pining, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, of a sort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-19 16:34:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13708347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwendolen_lotte/pseuds/untilourapathy
Summary: On Tuesdays, Luna covertly gardens as a public protest. On Thursdays, Ginny sends in her exposés toThe Prophet. And on a lonely Friday, three activists meet again and start to fall in love, over warm city lights and cold scones. Featuring a museum, misunderstandings and correspondence to be envied - for they fall and fail and fall, and that’s alright.





	yarrow, dogwood, grace: a story in chartreuse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PukingPastilles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PukingPastilles/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Flowers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7282924) by Anonymous. 



> Dearest Anna: happy Year of the Dog! I know that this ship must come as a little surprise (as hopefully does the fic) but I hope you enjoy it xx I also hope you can spot all the references to things we’ve talked about ;)  
> [There’s an accompanying playlist here xx](http://untilourapathy.tumblr.com/post/170960751741/new-fic-lunachoginny)

They dream awake, the three of them. Of a solution to dive into - a solution of blues and greens, of yous and mes. If only, they think, the soup of the world could be like you. Maybe then, life would be worth living.

Some days, they feel like derivatives of demigods. That they can do anything, be anyone. Other days, they feel very much charmless. 

Today is most definitely such a day. Luna can sense this as she spoons her hair into her yak milk by mistake, after last night’s sticky got to be too much - out of the corner of her eye, she thinks she can see one of her slippers in the fishbowl Nev gave her for her twentieth. Across the city, Ginny’s fickle juicer sprays her best boxers, her pulling ones, with its contents - kale, Shrivelfig extract, orange zest - and rather pointedly tells her she has four spots on her chin. She has to do her hair three times because she keeps missing strands, too busy trying to identify the source of the unexpected bouquet at her door, and forgets her lucky boots. She has to double back to fetch them, missing her usual training session. And Cho, with her flat in _Prenzlauer Berg_ , definitely knows today is to be a charmless one. Her normally graceful self trips over two empty beer bottles and she’s shat upon by a rogue bird, area too full of Muggles for her to Vanish it. 

The three of them don’t know it yet, but they’ll be soon to meet again. And maybe then, they can be each other’s charm.

It starts, at least in our story, at the V&A. If pressed, Luna’ll tell you that she works there as a tour guide (but just in the peak season). Otherwise, she’s a covert public gardener and an artistic activist - the head of _Ephemera_ , a zine for the new zeitgeist. A slice of post-war post-post-modernism, she likes to say, waving her latest collage in Ginny’s face, the edges of the moving photographs curling upwards towards her, reaching out. Ginny places her freckled hand over Luna’s cold one at that, silently pledging her support. Every month, she buys three copies of every edition of the zine, leaving them in random places around Diagon for people to find. Because that’s how Luna fights - through her art, through her creative voice. She runs it with Dean’s help, handing it out on the streets of London in her yellow overalls and coat, sandwiched in a copy of _The Quibbler_. It might not be worth much, but it’s still worth something, Luna thinks. 

And Ginny thinks Luna’s worth something. So she pesters Luna at her job, ostensibly to bring her takeaway as she forgets to eat, sometimes - wrapped up in her musings on chartreuse - but it’s something more, perhaps. Ginny hopes, at least. Luna’s a bright thing - a firefly if they were less common, phosphorescence on a wave and just as intangible. Ginny can’t put her into words, doesn’t know how. 

So she sticks her heart out there, bloody and misshapen, waiting for Luna to see. Today’s her fourth consecutive day popping into the V&A, always with a carton of noodles or curry or Mum’s scones, a day old and cold. Surely, Ginny thinks, Luna must have realised by now. Gryffindors aren’t particularly known for their subtlety, and she’s being as unsubtle as a girl can possibly get. This she knows, as her adventures to get Luna to realise that Ginny’s only a little in love with her have earned her some renown. She’s had Harry sighing into his cuppa, Ron wishing her the best of luck with a grimace and firm pat on the back, and even Hermione looking at her oddly before slowly backing away. At Ginny’s genius, she’s sure, but not a fantastic reception she knows. She’s stretching hope so taut that a snip of Luna’s favourite sewing scissors could end it all. But, she thinks, who wouldn’t fall in love with Luna, given the chance? 

But, because this isn’t that kind of story, nothing quite happens. Not yet, at least. It all continues on as normal, as life is wont to do. Wednesday’s still leg day for Ginny, Luna continues to paint (her walls, her canvas, her mind) and London awaits them. 

It goes on like this for a while. Luna eventually stops working at the V&A, meaning that Ginny doesn’t have to endure the weird looks from Luna’s former colleagues any longer. But this does mean that Ginny runs out of excuses to see her every day. In a fit of desperation (yes, Harry, she can admit it), she offers to go round to Luna’s to help her redecorate her new flat. She gets a polite, if firm, rejection - something along the lines of the Nargles that constantly pester Ginny being a distraction. She’s used to rejections by now - no Quidditch team will take her first string, she’s too ‘high profile’, too much of a ‘liability’ as someone in the public eye. That, she knows, is all complete bullshit. She knows the teams don’t want someone who’s written about the institutionalised sexism in Quidditch. That, admittedly, had been a hasty and aggressive article she’d written right after the war, but not one she regrets. It’s her job now, after all. She’s still hoping for a letter from the Harpies any day now - hence the continual training - but the team’s full and they’ve a solid second string already.

But halfway through her squats for the day, just as she’s contemplating Luna’s collarbones, Ginny receives a letter. It’s from the Continent, that she can tell - the owl looks far too bedraggled for it not to be. She gnaws at the waxy seal before kicking her wand back towards her, melting the seal off. She reads it once, twice - it’s from Cho Chang, Harry’s first kiss.

She’s not sure what to make of it. A fairly irrelevant Ravenclaw, she seems to remember, but an older girl. Not one to talk to, not unless given reason. She fumbles through the letter a third time, trying to read between the lines with a scowl. It’s too vague to mean much, really - it’s just an introductory letter, one that’s usually sent before real communication is made via Floo. But the letterhead - from the desk of a fancy law firm in Berlin - seems to indicate that a Fire-call may be difficult. So Ginny runs round her flat, still just boxer-clad (even if it’s four in the afternoon), hunting for a Quill. She nabs one that Hermione’s left over from her last time round and pens a reply.

 _Dear Cho,_  
_the work you do sounds fascinating. I’m afraid I don’t quite understand what my role in your newest campaign would be. I’m still only an amateur athlete, not yet signed. I’d love to help in any capacity, especially to promote women in sport, but I’m not sure I’m quite the right fit for what you’ve detailed in your letter._ Was that rude? Nevermind. Cho was hardly likely to speak to her again.  
_Best wishes,_ she scrawls,  
_Ginny_

So Cho’s an activist, too - a lawyer. She wonders how Cho deals with the shit she gets. Sometimes, when she’s running on so little sleep that her eyes fill with brine, she feels like they’re running on burning hope and not much else. As Ginny writes article after article on the state of sport in the Wizarding World, outing the corrupt and the twisted, she loses a little part of herself to her writing, to the words bold and bright on the page. 

The world eats at little girls raw, to pieces, until they’re nothing left but cartilage and bone. They grow up stronger, but incomplete - ravaged by the world roaring past, grim and grey. That’s why she still writes, why she still fights. Because as the activists that they are - they’re just composed of a bunch of shit and not-so-shit days, each minute ticking past a minute seized, a minute molded. Into the world that they want to see.

It’s as she’s thinking this that she changes her mind. Fuck it, she thinks. Just as she’s about to send the letter, owl nicely rested, Ginny tosses it into the fire, pulling out a new piece of parchment. Why the fuck not, she wonders. What’s she to lose? She’s a political sports journalist - not her intended nor desired profession, but that doesn’t make it any less worthwhile, she knows. She still has no idea what Cho wants from her, nor what Cho’s campaign is about. But, she thinks, _yes_. Yes, yes, yes. 

Ginny’s two more articles down before she unexpectedly gets another letter. Cho’s coming back to the UK to celebrate Chinese New Year with her family, it reads, and Cho’d like to meet up so she can clarify what the campaign’s going to be about. Ginny’d help in promoting sport for women, to help equalise the industry. Ginny’s still not sure why she’s been contacted, given that she can’t get a job in the industry for this very reason, but anything’s worth a try, at least once. The legacy of growing up with Fred and George, she supposes. 

She sends a reply to Cho’s family home, address enclosed, offering to take her round to a few places she thinks Cho’d like. The City, which seems like it’d suit, or a tiny tea shop in Holborn she likes to take Luna to, maybe even WC1 with its second-hand bookshops. She does a few more pushups to kill some time, surprisingly keen for Cho’s reply. This isn’t some novel, she reminds herself. Cho’s owl won’t flood in, smashing her grotty window, with a showering of petals anytime soon. 

So she takes a shower, makes some eggs. And of course, when she does see Cho’s owl swoop back in through her window, she’s got one leg in her joggers and the other bared, looking like a complete twit. She can’t say her half-shaven legs and ingrown hairs add much to the look. She can almost sense the judgement in Cho’s owl’s eyes. She bets the owl’s owner is just as fashionable as the vibe that the owl seems to exude. Ginny hops over to the window, joggers tangled at her feet, shutting the cold February air behind her as she offers Cho’s owl more treats. She really must, she thinks, find out the owl’s name.

Letting her eyes drift over the pointed slant of Cho’s handwriting, a grin begins to spread on her face. Cho’s responded accordingly, offering to take her for a coffee at one of her favourite local cafes in her parents’ village a little way up north. Ginny thinks she can do better than that. She pens a polite decline, insistently mentioning a vegan hideaway round East in turn, offering to pay. She hopes that her aggressively sweet sign off will convince Cho that her idea’s better. When Cho comes back to her, (a whole three days later, Ginny thinks, with no small amount of bitterness), Cho suggests a detente - to meet up round Whitehall, as Cho has business with the Ministry earlier in the day.

Just as she’s figuring out the last of the details, walking towards the warmth of her kitchen fire, Ginny looks up and runs into Luna’s hare. 

‘Hello,’ the Patronus intones, projecting Luna’s light voice. ‘I suppose I must’ve forgotten. Did you say that you were going to come round, right about now?’

Fuck. Ginny was meant to be at Luna’s a good hour ago now. They both know that Luna isn’t mistaken, that Ginny’s just a bad friend. Shit. She’s in her mankiest joggers and a top that must’ve belonged to a brother of hers, at some point in its sorry life on this planet. Whatever, she thinks. It’s not as if Luna’ll suddenly pay more attention to her if she attempts to put herself in something different. Luna’s not like that. Isn’t superficial. One of the reasons she loves her, she thinks. 

Once she finds some shoes and a musty-smelling coat, Ginny Apparates over, remembering to bring a straggling flower or two. 

‘Hey,’ she says - unkempt, breathless and about as Ginny-like as she could get. ‘Here,’ proffering the orchid.

An orchid, she thinks. An orchid for her love. She’d have pinned another one in her hair to match, but it’d just fall out - Sticking Charms don’t go so well with her hair. She’d have it plaited, but she’s not got the patience for that. Luna’s smile, upon seeing her, even as mussed as she is, is so - so blissful, almost beatific. She can’t help but feel even shittier, for losing track of time, for forgetting, for being so wrapped up with - with Cho, she realises. She’s the worst - she honestly doesn’t deserve Luna. Could never, would never. But she’d work her whole life to deserve her, as maudlin and awful as that sounds. 

Ginny, she’s just a record with a scratch - maybe several, the kind people only buy if there’s a 10 for £10 deal down at Portobello. Luna’s dawn, newborn - so fucking radiant in her florals as usual, dirty blonde hair pulled back by her Spectrespecs. Ginny’s so gone, she realises. So fucking gone.

The two of them go to Hampstead Heath to spy on the stars. Ginny lasts an impressive three hours before she sticks her foot her mouth. It’s almost as appalling as when she wrote that Valentine for Harry back when they were kids, and entirely just as humiliating.

‘I - Luna, I quite like you,’ she says. Shit - shit, shit. That was definitely not what was supposed to come out of her mouth. She’s so fucking terrible at this it’s painful - for her, every day is a charmless one. She thinks of those who are lucky enough to make their way through life consciously, properly. Unlike her - she sometimes feels like she’s tripped into life, always ending up a little left of where she’s meant to be. But even though it’s gone tits up, utterly so, she’s still so dizzy with it - her confession, her love - although she’s never felt so grounded in her life. Never been more acutely aware of the frozen mud underneath her feet, of the uneven cobblestone on their way back home. 

‘Of course,’ Luna replies, voice mild, linking their arms together. ‘Why else would we be friends?’ 

They’re meandering through the city streets, elbows damp and laughter bright. Ginny curses at herself yet again. She knows that attraction isn’t simmering for Luna, no. Rather something that comes through time, perhaps, but only perhaps. She’s lucky enough that Luna’s trusted her with this. Why did she have to go and ruin it all?

Bagpipes can be heard in the background, dancing away to the tune of the evening air. Luna wraps her hands round Ginny’s neck, drawing her to where the two streets meet. 

‘Let’s dance,’ she giggles into Ginny’s neck, as she watches the stars watch them. Ginny can’t dance, but she does so anyway. Lets herself be swept up in the glories of the music, the glittery rain casting a bright sheet over the black and white city, warm and friendly. She feels so damn light she could run, she thinks, and never come down, carried by the music to the tops of the city buildings, high enough to find that something. If she lets herself reach out, will Luna be there for her? Of course, she knows. Of course. Her tears and fears are just weighing her down. She lets it all go, under that London rain. Lets it be. 

She’s half leaning on Luna, fingers threaded with a few strands of hair. Her statement socks are sodden and Luna’s missing two rings. It’s a kind of euphoria, she thinks, to be this free. 

Ginny has to bite her lip twice to prevent herself from saying anything more. She’s redder than Luna’s cagoule and just as sweaty, too. If witches could burst out of their skin, she’d have done so twice over by now. Her confession replays in her mind - on loop on loop on loop - and Ginny wonders what the easiest way to go is. To wrench her arm out of Luna’s and make a dash for it, changing her name, living life as a Muggle and leaving to the wilds of a cloud forest somewhere far, far away? Throwing herself into the nearest available body of water? For fuck’s sake, she thinks, Harry’s supposed to be the incompetent one. Not her. What’ll she have to tease him about, the next time they’re down at the local?

But she can’t help it. It’s not a fact she can forget, her love. She clutches this fact to her chest all the way back to Luna’s, ambling just a bit too slowly to have a little extra time with her. As they wave their goodbyes, Ginny watches Luna on her balcony - stretching out, out, out before her. If she runs fast enough, she wonders, could she leap and fly into the sky, powered by nothing but her love? There’s a point out there, in the distance. Where light and darkness meet, perspective hits. She’d like like to go there, someday. 

A car screeches past, showering her with the contents of a grimy puddle. She shakes her daft thoughts away at that, wrapping her numb fingers in her coat sleeves. She’s just a girl in love - a fool, really - standing on the edge of a street, waiting for a sign. The sign. 

This, she thinks, is the way she lives now. 

It’s at this point that Cho meanders her way into our story, on a rather nondescript day of no particular note. It’s four days later (a particularly Friday kind of Friday), when Cho eventually does come to the UK, campaign papers in hand. Ginny finds herself huddled just south of Whitehall, waiting on Cho with her favourite pair of statement socks on, peeking just past her combat boots. She’s even wearing a baggy velvet jacket, just because it’s the City. The February wind gnaws at her freckled nose, unrelenting, as she stands by herself - Billy no mates, much? She’s just twiddling with the ends of her scarf when she hears her name, the wind nipping at the last syllable.

‘Ginny?’

She looks up. It’s a girl in - she’s right, fashionable blue robes, gold trimmed, with a pixie cut and a smile just as sharp. So this is the grown-up Cho, she wonders. Ginny sticks her hand out in an aborted attempt at formality (for this _is_ for a professional venture, after all) but Cho just gives her a firm hug. 

‘You look absolutely freezing. Come, let’s find someplace warm.’

*

Our story now turns to the woman in question. This isn’t some fairytale: Cho isn’t swept off her feet, overcome by Ginny’s beauty and strength and whatever else. Instead, Cho can tell that Ginny’s already trying to catalogue her, to see where she fits. Ginny keeps looking her up and down, attempting to unravel her secrets in a look. 

Cho thinks about what’s supposed to make a woman. A spoonful of grace, a healthy helping of obedience. A sprinkling of gentleness, a recipe for peace of mind. But her body’s just cobbled together like any other - of gristle and marrow and lard - all mixed into a girl, a lonely soul if not alone. Cho eyes Ginny consideringly instead - she needs this meeting to go well. She needs a voice, someone in the public eye to put the word out on the British front. She knows Ginny fights in her own way - through the sticky limbs of newspaper type, brave and brave and brave. But will it be enough?

Then Cho catches Ginny looking at her lips.

‘It’s Puddifoot Pink,’ she says helpfully.

Ginny seems startled. ‘What now?’ Ginny puffs out her cheeks awkwardly, sticking a hand into her trouser pocket. She takes a step back, anxious. Cho takes pity on her and her ill-fitting jacket, not nearly warm enough for the weather. She sends a discreet Warming Charm Ginny’s way.

‘My lipstick. It’s Puddifoot Pink, from Parvati’s latest collection. Didn’t she send you some? I’d have thought she’d have. You were both Gryffs, weren’t you?’

‘Ah,’ Ginny says, oddly flustered, ‘right. Erm. I’m just - going to go left, then?’

‘If you’re so certain,’ Cho replies, amused if a little confused. The both of them are still standing in a doorway for warmth, looking at each other with some bemusement. Ginny doesn’t make any move to go left. Cho doesn’t understand. 

‘Maybe we could go round to yours?’ Cho offers. A more sensible decision, definitely more so than any of the flighty offers Ginny’s made - probably just to act the perfect host. Ginny doesn’t have to do that for her, Cho knows she couldn’t possibly mean it. Cho’s practically a stranger. Whereas Ginny - the print of her trousers contrasts with the stripes of the building behind her, beautiful.

‘I don’t have much to offer, really,’ Ginny replies. ‘Just cold toast and two piles of unwashed laundry, if you’re into that.’ A weak attempt at a smile is made as Ginny kicks a stray beer bottle away, scuffing the tips of her black boots. Cho just rolls her eyes, wondering if she’s taken it too far already.

‘I wasn’t asking for cold toast, Ginny.’ Cho looks down at her feet, worried. She knows her attitude, so to speak, is an acquired taste. Hopes that Ginny’ll let her brusque nature slide. But Ginny doesn’t seem to be looking at her - her eyes flit about wildly, looking as if she’s forgotten something. Ginny must be in a mild state of despair now, Cho can tell. She’s seen that look on her own face enough times before she’s due at court, or when she’s had to pull another all-nighter. Who knew that despondency could taste so bland?

‘You alright there then?’ Cho’s assuming that she comes off as concerned but not too pushy, rather than overbearing or patronising. She steps towards Ginny, attempting to placate her. But there’s a reason she’s not normally left to this job, and she does wonder, sometimes, as she tends to fuck up. Because even with magic, she burns her fingers twice every morning. She honestly doesn’t know how she’d survive as a Muggle. Her eggs are always overdone and just the wrong side of firm, and her dependency on caffeine is alarming and - alarming, she supposes. 

Ginny just opens her mouth and closes it again. Cho can’t quite deduce the cause for her disquiet. ‘I promise you,’ Ginny says, voice lagging behind her like a surly Crup, ‘I’m usually a tad more charming than this. Just a tad, mind you, but still.’ 

Cho breaks into a soft smile, tempered by sudden affection. ‘Well, if yours isn’t quite ready for guests, my old housemate - she was in your year, wasn’t she? Anyway, Luna Lovegood - you must be at least friendly - yeah, she’s offered up her place for me to work, at least for while I’m here. How’s that sound?’ Cho’s given Ginny a piece of past heart there, although she doesn’t realise it yet. She hopes Ginny’ll be careful with it.

Ginny’s face is now an unattractive shade of puce, clashing rather alarmingly with her hair. Cho can’t think why Ginny’s finding what she’s said an issue. Maybe Ginny and Luna weren’t friends, then. Was that where she’s gone wrong? Was Cho too clumsy with it?

She’s left wondering until she’s been Side-Alonged over to Luna’s and is shoved a cup of milky tea and a cold scone. She notes how they interact from her vantage point on her sofa - Luna, a wisp of a floating flower, serene and hardly there, against Ginny and her every movement, heartsick. Cho can’t understand how Ginny’s so unabashedly open with her love, she’s almost impressed - Ginny is confessional even as she pours the tea, folding Luna’s old apron and tucking in Luna’s chair whenever she gets up, absentminded. All by hand, too - not a sight of her wand. 

That’s why, then. Why she must have acted so oddly after Cho’s mention of Luna. But why had Ginny seemed so discomposed before that? Cho falters, feeling just about as trivial as the dust gathering underneath Luna’s broken sofa. Just a little too much for the pair of them - unneeded, unwanted. She leafs through her notes again, just for something to do. 

But, as she still does have some semblance of tact left, Cho waits until after Luna’s left the room before she brings it up. Ginny’s agreed to help her with her campaign. They’re to start with Ginny’s column in _The Prophet_ , advertising more opportunities for girls to do sport, featuring a few female athletes - maybe even Gwenog Jones, they’ll have to see. But right now, all Cho can focus on is the twisted napkin in her hand and the dull metal of her teaspoon. 

‘There’s no need to be so forlorn about it, I don’t think,’ she offers, clutching her reddened fingers around the handpainted mug.

Ginny’s eyes pin her to the wall. ‘What.’

Cho just shrugs, a light one to ease the tension. She still can’t meet Ginny’s eyes. ‘The moping about Luna. Probably unnecessary. I think Luna does like you. Yes, in that way. She must do. At least a little, don’t you think?’

Cho can almost hear the roaring of Ginny’s bright heart. If Luna’s like the orchid in the vase on the shelf, all grace, Ginny’s yarrow. Luck and luck and another dose more, piled in a heap with the good sense of second sight. If Ginny tilts her throat up enough, Cho thinks, she could find the gaping jaws of a dragon-scaled heart there - lying quietly, patiently waiting. All for Luna, for her, for her, Cho thinks. Not for herself. Cho lets that reminder sit at the back of her throat all evening, right by her tonsils. To remind herself whenever she sets to open her mouth, to say something. That Ginny’s in love with Luna, and Luna must be too.

But it’s fine. Or it will be, Cho reassures herself. That’s what she’s used to. She’s made it this far in life without her other swan Cedric, and she’s done alright for herself. 

So Cho does what she does best - doing what’s she’s supposed to do. She visits her family, face pasted on, catches up with a few old friends. Writes to her bosses to update them on the campaign’s progress, in a dull matte ink. And when she returns to our story, it’s in a suit, feeling much more like herself with a silk square spun from an off-green.

A healthy colour, just too yellow to be a pistachio, but too green for lemon. Chartreuse, she thinks, is a colour that eats at space. She needs it to remind herself she is worth fighting for. That she is present, that she deserves her own happiness. Because without that, none of the women she loves would be worth it, either. 

*

She leaves our story in a suit, too.

‘Stop,’ Luna cries, as Cho makes to leave. ‘That can't be how it ends.’ Luna tugs on Cho’s arm, pulling her back towards herself and Ginny,

‘Stop,’ Luna repeats, beseeching. 

Cho looks at her, eyes heavy with a sadness she can taste. ‘But what if there was nothing there to begin with?’ 

That is a lie. Cho has to say rather a lot of those, to stay safe, to stay strong. Time’s always looking her in the eye, biting at her fingers, limbs, heart. But Cho’s given up - it can’t be worth it. It’s just a dusting of sadness. Necessary, she muses. Hopefully not for long. If only, she thinks. That she could be with them. But there are so many of those _ifs_. She grasps blindly to find an if, floating in the air with no place to be, and opens that dream with her forefinger and thumb. Would it be easier, Cho wonders, if they lived in Luna’s terrarium? Perhaps yes. But not nearly as wonderful, no. 

At least that’s what she tells herself as she leaves.

They’re this way because Cho’s made a mistake in leaving. They’ve all made mistakes, they know. It went a little like this:

Ginny and Cho are sitting on a bench in some park - Ginny couldn’t care less about which they’re in. Ginny’s got her tartan boxers on and Luna’s old scarf. She’s raw and small, breath smelling of bananas and hair in something resembling a bun. 

‘Ginny, you should tell Luna,’ Cho says.

‘Tell Luna _what_.’ Neither of them are looking at each other. They’re both focussing on an odd spot ahead of them. The lamppost, a squirrel.

Ginny reminds herself not to get too defensive at helpful, albeit unsolicited advice. ‘You should tell Luna you love her. Keeping it in won’t do either of you any good. You’ll be unhappy and it’ll affect your friendship.’ Ginny thinks that’s sensible enough - but she’s hardly a sensible one, is she?

‘And if she doesn’t like me? Then I’ll be unhappy and it’ll still affect our friendship.’ Ginny looks down at her fingers, intertwined, and chooses to sit on her hands instead.

‘Well, that’s one possibility, but I’d say the chances for that are rather slim. And at least you’ll have been honest about it,’ Cho suggests. 

Ginny scowls at that. A foolproof way to get a Gryffindor to do something, she supposes. But then Ginny cocks her head appraisingly, glancing over at Cho again. Something’s different. Maybe it’s the set of Cho’s mouth, the width of her shoulders, the breadth of her smile. 

‘You like Luna.’ It’s not as accusatory as it may seem. Just a fact.

‘Maybe a little,’ Cho has to admit. ‘But it’s nothing, really. Not on the level you two have.’

‘No, no,’ Ginny insists, ‘I understand why you like her.’

‘Really?’ Ginny notices Cho’s fingers creep into her bag - just for something to do, she supposes. 

‘Yeah. Because I fell for her too, remember?’ Who wouldn’t, Ginny remembers bitterly, fall in love with Luna, given the chance? 

Emboldened, she stands to Apparate. ‘You’re right,’ she says, swatting a flying leaf out of her face. ‘I should tell her. I’m going to do it. Finally.’

‘Don’t forget to breathe,’ Cho advises, looking like she’s about to chunder all the while. So Ginny goes and does just that, Apparates to Luna’s and tries to remember how to breathe. 

‘I think - no, I _know_ \- that I’m in love with you.’

It comes out of her in a furious rush and Ginny stills. She thinks she’s going to have to throw up. They’re sitting on Luna’s floor together, Ginny sprawled out on Luna’s handmade carpet, Luna plaiting her hair. 

‘What do you want me to plait your hair with?’ A quiet question from Luna, all grace.

She can’t speak - won’t, otherwise she’ll either scream or cry. Each word is a shard of slate, piercing – no, invading, hammering at her throat. She can’t speak. She’s but a collection of letters, a swarm of spaces and black lines, melded together in a shape of a human, a shape of something with a voice. But she can’t speak. 

‘The flowers, Ginny,’ Luna says, fingers soft on Ginny’s calves. ‘Which ones? I think tulips are perfect for us, don’t you? ’

She doesn’t know what the fuck tulips could possibly mean. She should’ve paid more attention in Herbology - not something she thought she’d ever think.

Luna just moves past Ginny’s internal screeching. ‘Let’s do yellow. Yellow tulips signify being hopelessly in love, after all.’

She hands her three tulips, yellow with a smattering of orange running through, folded in a back copy of _The Quibbler_. Ginny takes it and holds it out to sea.

 _I love you too_ , the newspaper reads, scrawled in pink paint. Luna takes the bedraggled bouquet back, pulling the tulips out of the newspaper cone to weave them through Ginny’s hair. She adds an orchid in, just for good measure. 

Ginny has to laugh with it all. She’s a fucking idiot. An idiot in love.

Thus the interlude ends and our story continues. Ginny’s now confessed, but doesn’t feel any better for it. There’s something lying in her stomach, undignified and heavy. The contents of the street opposite, perhaps. A brick or two, fallen and forlorn, broken glass and mushed cigarettes. She can’t quite identify it.

‘I suspect that’s Cho’s heart,’ Luna says. Ginny wishes Luna wouldn’t say that sort of stuff, sometimes. Of course it isn’t. But the rubbish lingers, churning and churning and churning some more. Confessing isn’t as cathartic as she expects - she thought it’d be like in the books. Grand and grand, walking arm in arm with her love - happy, happy, happier. 

But it isn’t quite like that. She still dreams awake - of the world, soupy and blue, ready to dive into - but also of Cho, sincerely wishing them the best, saying her goodbyes. She isn’t sure why. If she thinks of her later, when light is such a privation that her ghosts shine bright with sleep, no one has to know. No one has to know, she reminds herself. 

And when life moves on, her shame moves with her. Luna still goes and secretly plants public protest gardens every Tuesday night, Cho’s campaign moves ever-forward, owls flying in from Berlin, and Ginny continues to feel bad. She isn’t sure what it is. It’s not just pity, or guilt that she’s with Luna when it was also Cho’s dream. It’s more.

So she takes Luna’s advice, and sends Cho dogwood. ‘To signify affection,’ Luna says, which she supposes is true of Ginny’s feelings. ‘If Cho returns it, she’s indifferent. If Cho keeps it, she’s interested.’ 

Ginny knows Cho’s interested in Luna, but not so much in Ginny. She can’t help but hope, though. Now that she has Luna, she feels braver for it - more grounded. But waiting - waiting is antsy game. Because what if Cho hasn’t received the dogwood yet? Or maybe she’s just thrown it out, or it’s on it’s way back, ready to humiliate her, landing on her doorstep. Ginny’s not known for her patience, and she doesn’t plan on starting now. 

So she goes for a run, two, three - chops her hair in a fit of frustration, letting lashes of ginger fall to the floor, harsh. She panics on a Thursday and all the way into the Saturday. She bites her lip and lets herself look at the Floo once last time. She’s got tea _and_ coffee stains on her pyjama bottoms, she’s wearing Charlie’s old Quidditch top from Fourth Year that still somehow fits and odd slippers, one Luna’s and one of her own.

When Cho’s owl finally sweeps back into her crowded flat, smelling of mud and grass no matter how many Freshening Charms she attempts, it’s with a letter. Ginny runs to the loo to open it, not wanting even the owl to be privy to her moment of doom. She cracks it open, letting one eye open before ascertaining that there is indeed no dogwood wrapped in the scroll of parchment. No dogwood, just words. Words that lift off the page and wrap themselves round her heart and squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

Cho and Ginny, the letter reads, should woo Luna. Ginny’s confused. Luna’s her girlfriend (and isn’t she just gleeful), and Ginny’s pretty certain Luna likes Cho too. And Ginny does - just a little bit. So Ginny’s not sure where Cho is coming from. Wooing Luna? She doesn’t think Luna needs wooing. Luna likes the both of them already. But then she reads on, the letter turning incongruously romantic, at least of what she knows of the no-nonsense Cho. It details a summer lost, a summer spent in Berlin - of just the two of them, Luna and Cho versus the world. It’s an ode to the past, a love letter of a relationship that never was - of Luna coming to stay over at Cho’s, filling Cho’s flat with spider plants and warm milk, couple’s art and worn slippers.

Ginny didn’t know any of this. That Cho and Luna were essentially together for a few months, sleeping in each other’s beds, talking so late into the night that their words act as a bridge into the next day, pushing the end of time further and further on. Going on Muggle roadtrips together, and Apparating back when they got fed up. Warm summers, a lousy autumn, the two of them together in their loving glory, incredulous - overcome. And after all that, that Luna left to return to England as she she had ‘unfinished business.’ And that unfinished business, as Cho suspects in her letter, was Ginny. Cho mentions a letter Luna’s sent a month back - a conciliatory one, offering something more from the two of them. For Cho to consider a relationship with both Luna and Ginny.

 _And I know Luna’s always one step ahead,_ Cho writes, _but wouldn’t it be nice for us to do something for her, this time?_

Ginny can’t think of anything better. She now knows that it was Luna who’d sent her that bouquet at the beginning of our story so long ago, who’d egged her on to send that dogwood to Cho, knowing full well Cho’d say yes.

And that’s how Luna finds them, knee deep in mud, Ginny and Cho planting their own public protest garden rather inconspicuously.

‘Surreptitious, you two. What are you strangers planting, then?’

‘Snapdragons,’ Cho says. ‘Dogwood.’

‘Hydrangea,’ Ginny offers. ‘Yarrow.’

And, they think, there is their Grace. Standing in front of them in Ginny’s combat boots and a floral dress, all five foot of her, reaching out. 

They’re a messy story - sloppy, really. Of bright sparks in the night, of a romance gone left. Their time together gritty, with lashings of hope -their world slightly charred at the periphery, but just as worthwhile. They’re just three girls in clothes ill-fitting, bold and bright - words empty air, minds metal shells of lovely lies - so alien to a world made of soil and earth and clay. Ginny never gets her offer from the Harpies - or the Harriers or any other team, for that matter. Cho’s campaign fails, and Luna gets a warning from the Aurors for her illegal public gardening. But none of that matters. For Cho, Ginny, Luna - they live their lives exuberantly, with the three jars by the bed they share: yarrow, dogwood, grace. And they’ve a Crup named Sappho, too. Just for the disbelievers.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to @henrymercury and @thealmostrhetoricalquestion for being the loveliest and most patient of sounding boards <3 Unbetaed, so sorry for any mistakes xx Come say hi on tumblr, I'm @untilourapathy!


End file.
